simply janet

Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Story by Leonie Swann


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I’ll never look at sheep the same way again.

Three Bags Full was unexpectedly enjoyable — and while I typically don’t enjoy mysteries or anthropomorphic novels, this was a worthwhile departure for me. If you enjoyed the dimwitted sheep in Babe (the movie), in Three Bags Full, these sheep are intelligent and observant, and ultimately able to help solve the murder of their beloved shepherd. There were some comical moments during their encounters with humans that were so well-written that it didn’t end up being silly.

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In November of last year, I bought Hunger Games for my oldest son after reading a recommendation on the Book Whisperer’s “Boy Year” blog entry. As soon as he finished it, he insisted I read it as well. The story is compelling, gripping, and suspenseful. The pace is quick and breathless and likely a little bit too graphic for a younger, more sensitive reader. (Our younger son isn’t that interested in the series yet, but if he was, I’d struggle with whether it was appropriate for him). Although it’s considered a book for young adult readers, don’t let that keep you from reading it!

The final book in the series is scheduled to be released on August 24th. I think we’ll have to buy three copies since we can’t agree on who gets to read it first.

The other books I’ve finished lately can be seen in my Goodreads widget on my sidebar. I’ve been listening to some of them as audiobooks and while I enjoy it, I still prefer my Kindle for reading in bed. There’s something about listening to audiobooks that makes me fall asleep (and lose my place). My friend Jennie recently sent me some paperbacks and the two I finished (Pope Joan and The Constant Princess) were very enjoyable. I definitely want to read some more Philippa Gregory novels now!

Several months ago, I posted an impassioned blog entry about my son’s experience with the Accelerated Reader program at his school. Since then, I’ve been wrestling with “the system” and thought I would share the outcome here – because it’s one of many things lately that have made me feel anxious and helpless. I’ve been quite . . . earnest . . . in my quest for a resolution.

I’ll give you the good news first: My son still loves to read and still enjoys his books.

All of my battles are waged in the background, via phone calls and emails, and he’s not aware of them. If you’ll remember, he didn’t enjoy reading at all (dreaded it, in fact) until late last summer when he discovered books that he enjoys. So it was still quite precarious for him and I felt he could have a setback with the smallest bit of discouragement – or even subtle lack of encouragement – at school.

I was told repeatedly that he absolutely could not take an Accelerated Reader (“AR”) quiz that was outside his range. All the children are tested periodically (every nine weeks?) via the STAR Reading Assessment – and the outcome of that test determines his reading level — which, I learned, then becomes the completely inflexible range which he cannot and will not be allowed to deviate from when taking a quiz. Additionally, for his weekly reading log (for which he receives a grade), he must read 100 minutes per week, but only from books that are in his range. (For my son, that range is 3.0 to 4.5). In fact, early in the school year, I was told that for purposes of AR quizzes and the reading log minutes, that he could only read books from the school library, or as a rare exception, the classroom library. I decided that although I am usually a strict rule-follower, that I would defend to the end our right to choose books in his range from our own home, from the community library, from our local bookstore, or from books that I could purchase online. We parents are given a link to the Renaissance Learning website where we can follow our child’s progress toward his goals and also search their AR Book Finder database in order to choose books by interest level and range for which an AR quiz is offered. The school district has paid tens of thousands of dollars for Renaissance Learning materials and resources, and unless my son’s school guarantees that my child has access to every book in his range for which they offer a quiz, I am going to assume that if we own the book that’s in his range, he can certainly read it, record the minutes on his log, fill out a two-page activity sheet, fill out a form in the front of his 3-ring AR binder at school, and finally . . . take an AR quiz.

So our son, a formerly reluctant reader, received a book during his classroom’s holiday party that was a bit outside his range. He started reading the book and enjoyed it so much he wanted the other three books in the series. We got them for him during the holiday break and he proceeded to read and re-read all of them. I later looked up the books on the website and noticed they were slightly higher than his range, so I made a mental note to ask his reading teacher after the break if she could make an exception and allow him to test on the books in the series. Meanwhile, I was guiding him to other books in his range for which he could take a quiz. During an impromptu parent/teacher conference in early February, I told his reading teacher how much he enjoyed the Diary of a Wimpy Kids series and requested that he be allowed to take another STAR Assessment in order to see if his range would be raised enough to allow him to “legally” take the AR quizzes for those books. She said she would test him. Last week, I finally called her to follow up since it had been so long. She told me that she had forgotten to test him after our conference. But . . . coincidentally, she said that all the third graders were taking the STAR Assessment the very next morning and she would inform me of the results. And this is what I got via email the next day, after his quiz:

I apologize again for forgetting to test [ . . .] after our conference. I did test
him today, however his level actually dropped. I am not going to lower it from
where it was, but he still will not be able to test on the higher level books.
I cannot test again either this quick. I’m sorry he will not be able to test
on them. I am glad though that he enjoyed reading them.

Okay. But really . . . it was not okay. I replied right away:

Thank you for your email. I would like to know if there’s any reason he cannot test on the Wimpy Kids books or the Captain Underpants books that he has read.

If this is an issue, I would like to confer with you and whoever else might need to be involved to get approval for him to take AR tests. I do not agree with discouraging him from reading good books just because they aren’t in his level. He should be able to do this for his sense of competence and confidence. . .

And then, I basically just lost it. I lost all of my desire to sit quietly with my hands folded and allow this system to prevail without expressing (on behalf of my son) how I felt about it. Maybe I over-reacted. Maybe I revealed a little hysteria when I discussed this with his principal later that day and became, essentially, that mom. While I was railing against “the system” and their policies on the phone with him, I had received this email from his teacher:

Thank you for your email. I completely respect your perspective on this
situation. However, the Accelerator Reader Guidelines are established by the
program with the best interest of the students in mind. Specifically we don’t’
want his feelings of competence and confidence to be diminished by doing poorly
on a test that is above his tested independent reading level. This level is
based on what he can accomplish independently without any assistance so he can
feel the achievement is truly his and not assisted in any way. The reason this
program has been so successful is because of these guidelines and that is why
they are school policy here at [ . . . Elementary]. I know this seems restrictive
to you, but this is why there is a wide range established so he has a variety
of books to choose from. There are so many wonderful books to choose from in
his range that he should still be able to feel successful and confident in his
abilities.

Keeping all of this information in mind, he can test on the books he read last
nine weeks that are above his level if you still want him too [emphasis mine].
However, if he does do poorly that will affect his average for the 4th nine weeks and will not
be able to be removed. From here on out though, we need to work together to
make sure all of the books he reads and tests on are in his level so we do not
run into this problem in the future [emphasis mine]. I so appreciate all of your dedication
given to [his] success and the support you have given this year.

Let me stop here and take a deep breath and share how much my son has enjoyed his school this year — and how much he loves his teachers and expresses that he misses them when he’s not at school. I have also enjoyed his teachers and we’ve worked very well together on his behalf on everything else. It’s this ONE THING that we have struggled to come to terms with, but in my mind, it’s the hill I have to take for him — because it IS important. The love of reading, or at least an enjoyment of it, will affect his entire school career and ultimately, his future. I’ve been aware of the policies and the system all along and I was certainly doing my best to work within it, regardless of how I felt about it. I’ve been impressed by his teachers all year long for being responsive to our son, sensing his needs and helping him remain positive. My intention was never to campaign to go above his range, but to work with what we were given. It wasn’t an issue until he received this book by chance.

But even though I was angered by the way it was presented, by the implication that he would do poorly on the test (because, you know, those ranges are infallible), we at least had the victory that he could test on the books. He took the first one on Wednesday after he filled out the required two-page “activity sheet.” There were ten questions on the AR quiz. He missed one. He got 90%. We celebrated by going to the bookstore that night and purchasing eight more books of his choosing, in his range (except for the one I got just because he wanted it — he sat and read it cover to cover while he ate a cookie in the store’s cafe).

This post also appears on my knitting blog

Last month I wrote about a package of memorabilia that my sister sent me. In it were documents from my Uncle Michio that he had sent to my mother sometime in the mid- to late-80′s and included a translation of our family history (that is, translated from ancient Japanese to modern Japanese) and a genealogical chart for their immediate family. He knew I was interested in our family history and after my mom and I visited Japan in 1985, he started compiling some of the information to send me. He later sent it to my mother, rather than to me, since much of it was written in Japanese. I think he expected that I would sit down with her and listen while she translated the information for me. Probably due to other things going on in our lives at the time, I never knew that he had sent her the chart or the letter. I discovered it last month with the other items in the box.

Some background:
Several years ago, I learned that my mom had a brother who died during World War II. More recently, she shared a little more about the day he disappeared, giving me details that led me to believe that he was “lost during the war.” It wasn’t until I saw the chart my Uncle sent that there was more significance to his disappearance than I could have imagined:

It appears likely that he perished during the firebombing of Tokyo. More specifically, the incendiary bombing of urban centers all over Japan, using bombs filled with what would become the precursor to napalm and often described as “jellied petroleum” or “jellied gasoline,” and in this case, dropped in heavily populated areas of Tokyo. But on this day 65 years ago, in the neighborhood where my mother’s family lived, my Uncle Osamu died. History came alive the moment I saw the date.

Accounts of that day in Tokyo are so difficult to read. Survivors can rarely be coaxed to talk about that day and I’m not likely to ever ask my mom to tell me more about it. She was 14 years old on March 10, 1945, and a student at Keisen Girls’ School in Setagaya-ku, Tokyo (from April 1942 – March 1946). I recall that she has always had a difficult time watching any war footage (Iraq, Desert Storm, etc) or seeing any images of fire. And, although her older brother Osamu was one wartime death among hundreds of thousands in Japan, there are still questions about this one young man and some whispered rumors within the family of what really might have happened *. His body was never recovered, but seeing this date finally helps me to understand (after reading so many gut-wrenching accounts of this day 65 years ago) what my mother meant by “lost.”

From here:

On March 9 and 10, 1945, before dawn, 279 B-29s dispatched from the 73rd, 313th and 314th, 31 from the 500th Bomb Group, attack Tokyo urban areas with 1,665 tons of incendiary bombs from between 4,900 feet and 9,200 feet. Fifteen square miles of the Tokyo urban area is burned out.

The numbers are almost unfathomable. But one young man died that day and that man was Osamu:

And the earliest known photo which again, I found in the package my sister sent:

I’ve labeled the photo to indicate who everybody was. The photo was clearly taken sometime in the summer, so I believe it to be 1931, and my mom would have been around 1-1/2 years old.

I was so close to never knowing that I had this highly personal connection to such an infamous day in American and Japanese history. But it’s important to me because without that connection, I might never have understood the significance of what happened that day and how so little (if any) is written about it in history books. Some of you might remember this post from 2008 in which I shared my first glimpse of what my mom’s life might have been like in Tokyo during WWII. Back then, I didn’t know that my uncle’s death was tied to this day and to events similar to the ones depicted in the animated film Grave of the Fireflies.

A continent away, the same year my Uncle Osamu died, my father was in high school and planning his enlistment in the US armed forces. Although the war had ended by the time he enlisted, he clearly had the desire to leave Ohio for more exotic locales, eventually arriving in Tokyo sometime in 1949. The rest, as the old cliché goes, is history.

*I no longer have any family members currently living who know the details about what happened to Uncle Osamu the day he disappeared. I can’t stress enough that had it not been for Wikipedia and the internet, I’d never have this information or insight

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, and live along some distant day into the answer. (Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet)

Inspired by Malcolm Gladwell’s Late Bloomers.

Books I’ve finished this week: Stargirl, by Jerry Spinelli, Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead – all of them are 5-star books and highly recommended

Seven days . . . what a difference it makes:

I have had a wonderful holiday — how about you? There were a few days during all the pre-holiday madness that I thought I was getting sick, but I’m grateful I didn’t. It was just my body telling me to slow down and rest. So I did — and it helped.

I’ve been reading a lot — and re-reading some old favorites. If you have kids in your life, I can’t recommend this book enough. I first read it when Erica was two years old and it helped guide me in choosing read aloud picture books. Eighteen years later, those books are timeless and still richly entertaining and satisfying for the boys. I’ve not been reading aloud as much as I should, but that’s going to change in 2010. I also ordered The Book Whisperer, by Donalyn Miller and can’t wait to read it. I’ve gotten so much out of her blog and it’s helped me to source good books for my oldest son.

And just for me, the biggest treat was reading Amy Tan’s The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life. She writes a lot about her mom and the grandmother she never knew except through stories and portraits. Reading it was personal, poignant and real. Like Amy, I never knew my grandmother, but her presence is felt through what my mom shares about her own life and the choice she made to marry an American and leave Japan — and her mother. I’ve often wondered about my grandmother’s perspective and wished I could have known her. In her book, Amy acknowledges that there’s a level of “knowing” her grandmother that’s experienced in dreams and intuition and she channels that in her writing. There are stories that need to be told and perhaps the granddaughter is the one to finally tell them. I’m hopeful.

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I’m SO over 2009 and can’t wait for 2010. But the best thing about 2009? The best thing I did this year was make time for reading again. My “to-read” list is getting longer every day. And I’m looking ahead a lot more than usual as the year closes. I’m hopeful. Focused. Determined. And ready to be more in control. Less buffeted.

Ambition or adaptability? Which is more important? I’ll try to share my own answer to that in 2010.

You know what? I’m not a guy — so I didn’t know that it’s common that young guys struggle with reading. My oldest guy (he’s 11 now) wasn’t a reluctant reader; my youngest guy (9 years old) is. It’s been quite a challenge to light that spark in him — to instill a desire to read and explore books. Since I didn’t struggle to find reading fun when I was younger (left to my own devices, I would choose reading over almost any other activity), I didn’t quite understand until recently that some people would never “choose” to read. Now I’ve found that there are a lot of “guy” authors who identify with and write about their struggles and end up growing up to write excellent books for guys. Gary Paulsen, Dav Pilkey, Jon Scieszka and Jeff Kinney are just a few wildly successful authors who’ve shared their childhood struggles with reading. And I found this website today: Guys Read via this blog entry at The Book Whisperer (finally — a Texas language arts teacher who totally gets it!)

And the son who loves to read? He has a reading teacher this year who has emphatically stated that she doesn’t LIKE reading. I think she even said this on his first day of class. And her expectations and lack of understanding of “guys” is evident in the assignments she’s given to the class and in my son’s sudden lack of desire to read good books. This is a kid who will gladly read 5,000 pages over the summer without any external motivation or reward and now her criticism of reading as an enjoyable pastime is ringing in his (and my) ears.

I’m SO ready for some changes to the reading curriculum in our school district.

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There’s not a lot I hate. I hate racism and sexism. I hate abuse of power. And with a red hot passion, I hate the Accelerated Reader (by Renaissance Learning) when it’s being used incorrectly. I hate when its use in schools (Conroe ISD, I’m looking at you) is MANDATORY and a student’s grade is tied to their participation in the Accelerated Reader (A/R) Program. And I will continue to hate it until it’s a voluntary program that doesn’t carry unreasonable, exclusionary incentives. I’ll definitely continue to hate it unless and until it generates within my children a sincere and lifelong desire to read good books. And I can assure you that I’ll hate it whether my kids do well or poorly on A/R “quizzes.”

I believe it should be used as an assessment tool only, and/or an optional and fun tool for kids to gauge their comprehension of their favorite books — books they would have been reading anyway regardless of how many “points” were associated with it.

Here’s a succinct quote from the website for The Read-Aloud Handbook (my all-time favorite book about reading and choosing quality books for your family — and incidentally, the book I used as a guide when purchasing at school book fairs)

As I see it, the real problem arrived when districts bought the programs with the idea they would absolutely lift reading scores. “Listen,” declares the school board member, “if we’re spending $50 grand on this program that’s supposed to raise scores, then how can we allow it to be optional? You know the kids who’ll never opt for it—the ones with the low scores, who drag everyone else’s scores down. No—it’s gotta be mandatory participation.” And to cement it into place, the district makes the point system 25 percent of the child’s grade for a marking period. Oooops! They just took the “carrot” off the stick, leaving just the stick—a new grading weapon. . . .

I just spent my entire morning going through our books to identify whether we own books in my child’s “reading level” (determined by testing that takes several weeks of a teacher’s instruction time). And we do own many — I just had to identify the number of points each one carried. Over the years, I’ve accumulated a lot of books purchase through school book fairs (you know — the ones that benefit the school library and increase their collection of good books?) and I’m not surprised that I already own several that fall in to his range. The frustrating thing is that I was told that my son couldn’t take an A/R quiz unless he had checked out in the school’s library. Nevermind that we already own the book or could purchase a book. Whatever — it doesn’t matter now because I’ve already made the decision that it’s the one rule I’ll not comply with — I’ve spent many hundreds of dollars over the years accumulating books that I’ve moved across a few states over the last decade. If there’s an A/R quiz for a book we own and he’s reading it (and enjoying it), then he should be allowed to take a quiz on it.

Before taking a quiz, he has to fill out a graphic organizer along with the “in-class log” — two barriers to quiz-taking that I’m still not comfortable with. He has a designated day every week on which he is “guaranteed” an audience with his teacher to go over his progress and his goals and then to take a quiz (or quizzes) on the computer, and is supposedly allowed to take one any time and any day he is ready (as long as he’s completed an activity sheet/graphic organizer and also filled out the log).

So my challenge is working within this system (while following the “rules” and encouraging my children to do the same) and engaging my kids with good books to read while at the same time confining them to a reading level that might or might not contain books in which they have an interest. Luckily, I’ve found some excellent books on the Kindle. The issue hasn’t been about the lack of good books — it’s the lack of district support for reading those books (“Oh, I’m sorry, that’s above his reading level. He can’t take a quiz on that one”). And now I’m anticipating some resistance to the idea of allowing my boys to read “A/R” books that I purchase for the Kindle when there’s no physical book to take to school with them. But if the book has a quiz available and it’s in their reading level, and they’ve followed nearly all the rules, then I think they should absolutely be allowed to take the quiz. Did I mention I hate this?

Edited to add: Read #7 from this page on the Conroe ISD site. What a blatant contradiction of their mandatory A/R program (and it also contains a grammatical error)

I fully support the concept of promoting Sustained Silent Reading (“SSR”) in schools and at home and would love to see the A/R program used as the foundation to support SSR.